About the Nonprofit
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Our mission is to empower immigrants and their families become full participants in American life. Our vision is an integrated Lake County where everyone has access to opportunity and a path to success. Serving Lake and McHenry Counties, Mano a Mano is located in Round Lake Park and has community sites in Mundelein, Highland Park, North Chicago and Wauconda. Mano a Mano pursues this mission and vision by providing education to promote five key areas: Healthy Families, Productive Parents, Engaged Citizens, Successful Children and Democracy in Action. Through volunteers and staff, Mano a Mano offers education, programs and support to more than 8000 clients annually.
Our Engaged Citizens progam is focused on helping immigrants obtain their best immigration status available to them through quality, reliable and affordable immigration legal services. Mano a Mano is recognized by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Assistance Programs (OLAP), authorized to provide immigration legal services without the presence of an attorney through our Accredited Representatives.Engaged Citizens Program Initiatives include:
Immigration Legal Services: providing affordable and trustworthy application processing for administrative processes adjudicated by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Application processes supported include: naturalization, deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA), and green card renewals. Mano a Mano provides one-on-one case management and support through these complex processes;
Outreach & Education: keeping the community up to date in the latest happenings in the immigration world, including any new laws or fraud alerts;
Beyond Legal Aid Clinic in conjunction with Beyond Legal Aid (a Chicago-based legal clinic), providing full legal representation before USCIS and the Department of Justice for complicated immigration cases, including: naturalization, U-visas, asylum petitions, deportation defense, and re-inscriptions for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Healthy Families: focused on helping immigrant families integrate and orient themselves to the U.S. healthcare system and to live their healthiest lives. Healthy families mean healthy communities. Healthy Families Program Initiatives include:
Health Education & Literacy: implementing a large-scale health education outreach effort in order to improve health literacy and understanding of the health care system through education and training; implemented by our Health Education Team (which includes both volunteer community health workers or promotores de salud and Mano a Mano staff);
Access to Care: acting as the gateway to the health and human services sector of Lake County, we provide health case management to support families in gaining access to care (application support for public benefits, health insurance, and other service enrollment) and information, facilitating access to free health screenings, and providing referrals to other Lake County-based human services providers;
Healthy Living: providing educational, affordable, fun, and healthy lifestyle activities to the community; that are culturally relevant and improve the quality of life of individuals in the community through our community garden (hosted by Murphy Elementary School) and free seasonal weekly Zumba classes.
Productive Parents is focused on adult learning, workforce development, and improving community members’ economic prosperity and opportunities, Mano a Mano is committed to providing a trusted and safe environment where adults of all ages can come to learn, gain new skills, and find a better job. We meet our client where they are at educationally and work with them to establish and achieve their goals. Productive Parents Program Initiatives include:
English Language Acquisition: working in partnership with the College of Lake County, we offer multi-level English language courses, ranging from basic to advanced classes;
GED in Spanish: offering individual GED subject area classes in order to prepare students to take this high school equivalency test so that they can either continue their education or obtain employment;
Digital Literacy: offering the basics of computer use, typing classes, and other classes focused on specific softwares such as the Microsoft Office Suite.
Education and Employment Coaching: providing one-on-one case management with community members to support the continuing of their education (past GED for example) and/or in obtaining a better job based on their skills and interest.
Successful Children: Mano a Mano is focused on preparing parents and children to succeed in the U.S. school system by making sure that they have the tools and resources to start kindergarten with the skills that they need to succeed. Eighty-five percent of the children we work with never go to preschool, which means that the first day of kindergarten is the first time they have any exposure to academic content. We want to make sure that they start at grade level and are set up to achieve. Successful Children Program Initiatives include:
Kinder Camps: working with pre-kindergarteners and their parents to develop the basic academic and socio-emotional skills needed to start kindergarten at grade level and coaching the parents to be their child’s first teacher;
Early Intervention Screenings: working in partnership with the Special Education District of Lake County (SEDOL) to identify learning disabilities in young learners as early as possible in order to ensure immediate attention to their special needs.
Democracy in Action (DIA) is a program within Mano a Mano Family Resource Center that focuses on engaging and uplifting the voices of the traditionally marginalized and underrepresented communities and mobilizing them to take action and do their civic duties. Mano a Mano Family Resource Center recognizes that advocacy on behalf of our community is an essential strategy to accomplishing our stated vision and mission. We acknowledge that influencing public policy, decision-making processes, and public sentiment are legal and powerful ways to advance the interests of our community and our organization.
